It is doubtful Nathan Tinkler's Hunter Sports Group can have any further role in running the Newcastle Knights if it is unable to secure a $10.52million bank guarantee by 5pm Monday, according to a major sponsor of the club.

HSG, the Nathan Tinkler company that owns the Knights and Newcastle Jets, has until close of business on Monday to raise the guarantee or it will default on the terms and conditions of Tinkler’s 2011 takeover of the NRL club.

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On Wednesday, HSG appeared to be making contingency plans by announcing on the Knights website that the Knights, NRL and members club would hold negotiations ‘‘to identify a new model moving forward’’.

‘‘HSG has been in fruitful discussion with the NRL over a period of time to identify a unified business model to ensure the long-term future of the Knights,’’ the statement said.

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It added that HSG ‘‘remained committed’’ to supporting and contributing to the Knights ‘‘into the future’’.

This prompted a report in The Daily Telegraph, the Knights’ official newspaper, that stated HSG was negotiating with the members club to form ‘‘a joint-venture ownership’’.

Wests Group chief executive Philip Gardner said on Thursday he regarded such a scenario as implausible.

‘‘Next week, if the guarantee is called by the members club and the transition goes through, then HSG would have no further role in the Knights,’’ Gardner told Fairfax Media. ‘‘The stakeholders would then be the members club and the NRL.

‘‘They would then need to look at what’s in the best interests of the Knights and the town, the community, and we’d be happy to have a discussion with the members club and the NRL about that.’’

Gardner said Wests, who have sponsored the Knights since inception and provide their training and administration facilities at Mayfield West, would always be willing to support the city’s flagship team.

But he said any talk about alternative business structures involving HSG was pointless unless Tinkler was good for the bank guarantee.

‘‘As it stands, Mr Tinkler has a licence to run the Knights under certain scenarios ... but to talk about a joint venture with us or anyone else is quite ludicrous because we don’t know how things are going to play out next week,’’ he said.

NRL chief executive Dave Smith said in Brisbane on Thursday he was monitoring the situation ‘‘very carefully’’.

“We’ll do whatever we need to do to make sure the Newcastle team stays good and great and continues to perform well in the premiership,’’ Smith said.

An NRL spokesman said, at this point, the governing body was merely serving as an conduit between the Knights and the members club.

‘‘We are facilitating discussions between the parties at the invitation of both the Newcastle Knights and the members club,’’ he said.

‘‘In the meantime, it is business as usual for the Knights.’’

In an interview on Sky Sports Radio yesterday, Knights chief executive Matt Gidley said Tinkler was ‘‘still very keen to be involved in the club’’.

‘‘There is no doubt about that,’’ Gidley said. ‘‘He’s made that clear to me on a number of occasions ... we’d like him to remain involved in the club to some extent, so as I said I know there’s some discussions going to be had in that regard in the near future.’’

Members club chairman Nick Dan was reluctant to comment yesterday, other than to confirm he had accessed the existing $10.3 million bank guarantee with Westpac to have it converted into a cheque.

He will visit the Greater Union Building Society today to do likewise with a $220,000 surety.

The combined $10.52 million will then be placed in a joint signatory account for safekeeping.

A new $10.52 million guarantee was supposed to be in place for a one-year tenure until January 31 next year. But instead HSG negotiated an interim guarantee of two months, expiring on March 31, explaining that this would save $500,000 in bank fees.

The members club granted the extension, but if the $10.52 million guarantee is not replaced by Monday, they will be entitled to lay claim to the cash in the joint account.

They will also then be enabled to launch the process of buying the Knights back for $1.

In the Knights statement on Wednesday, the club said: ‘‘No further comment will be provided by any parties involved during this period of negotiation.’’